After joining some wonderful online ND communities – specified in a previous post – I took significant steps towards integrating giftedness.
Here’s what happened next…
I joined the Gifted Mindfulness Collective Community of Practice led by the wonderful psychologist, Dr Kelly Pryde. I loved it but, unfortunately, found the time zone challenging. 1.30 a.m. starts here in Australia for 1.5 hour weekly sessions was difficult to sustain. However, I lasted six months in the group and the women had been warm, brilliant, and inspiring to connect with.
I had the opportunity to join a Gifted Writers’ Group with Dutch writer, Jan Provoost. I met some amazing writers and felt my writing project develop with the sensitive, perceptive input Jan gave me during the six month project. This was a huge boost for my confidence, especially when it came to writing about the gifted experience.
For a while I did another challenging time zone stunt, waking at 4.30 a.m. every month to join Intergifted’s Speech Club. After a couple of attendances, I was invited to present, which I did with much pleasure about an aspect of my life as a visual artist. This is a free, fun, warm and welcoming group that embraces diversity in all its splendid forms.
For six months I engaged Lotte van Lith as a creativity coach for my writing project after my writing course with Jan finished. This was an expansive, highly engaging time. Lotte gave incredibly preceptive and precise feedback that not only helped me integrate my own gifted self but also deepened my creative practice and output. You can find Lotte right here: https://www.alotofcomplexity.com
I jumped into Dr Patty Gently’s online community, ‘Bloomers: Gifted and 2E Adults’ and joined her deeply insightful course on Gifted Trauma. I made some stunning friends and learned so much. I’ve since written blogs for Patty’s Bright Insight website. I’m so excited for her new book, Intersection of Intensity: Exploring Giftedness and Trauma (2024). Patty is truly one of a kind and it’s been a total joy connecting with her.
With great excitement I joined Jennifer Harvey Sallin’s twelve month Gifted Psychology 101 course for coaches. This deep dive was eye opening on so many levels as to the diversity of the gifted experience in the ND community. The group has been so enriching and I’ve grown so much as a result. What I learned will continue to have a significant impact on my life for many years to come. I’m sure the connections made will be lifelong and I’m incredibly grateful for that.
I also joined the Dabrowski Positive Disintegration online study group with the amazing Dr Chris Wells and Emma Nicholson. I mentioned Chris and Emma’s great Positive Disintegration podcast in a previous post and highly recommended the resources of the Dabrowski Centre. It’s with super excitement that I’ll be presenting at the Dabrowski Congress in July 2024. See the details below for live and online attendance options and please don’t miss out! I’m inspired by the work, the theory and the dedication behind the Dabrowski Centre, making such a difference in the world.
During 2023, I wrote for Intergifted’s anthology, Retrieving the Bones: Restoring and Re-Storying the Gifted Feminine. It was an inspirational project to be part of and I greatly appreciated the opportunity. Superb writers have contributed and it’s such a beautiful collection of empowering wisdom. Please see the link below and buy yourself a copy if you haven’t already.
I’ve also dived into the Neurodivergent Coaching Academy’s monthly Masterclasses with Kate Arms and Tracy Winter. There have been some great topics, insightful research and interesting discussions.
By the way, I’m not affiliated with any of the people or organisations mentioned. I’ve made an independent review that you are free to embrace or ignore. Of course, my personal experience is going to vary from other’s. It’s best to follow what resonates with you as no-one else’s path will suit you to a tee. However, I hope my experiences will shed some light on what’s possible in the ND space.
I’ve been so fortunate to explore some of the ND world with an intensity that’s been fulfilling. I noticed that I’d dropped that feeling of wrongness somewhere along the line and relaxed into a feeling of rightness. I’m sure this is due to the mirroring I received along the way. Like, I suddenly made sense among the ND community. Difference was celebrated. Multidimensionality was welcomed. Creativity was leading the way forward. Intellectual rigor was respected. I learnt a great deal about compassion for self and others.
Everyone I met in the gifted community had an experience, perception, or a piece of data to offer, and I really did learn and grow in these ND spaces. This also supported me in building a mountain of accurate data that fed into self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-understanding.
Exposure to these online communities also emphasised the challenges of thriving as a gifted adult, especially given the multidimensionality of gifted lives personally, socially, occupationally, psychologically, and existentially. Add to this the considerable ecological, political, and existential struggles of our time and the dangerous precipice humans and all living entities continue to face. It was clear that giftedness didn’t give anyone a free pass to extraordinary success, as in eminence and wealth. What a fraught cultural myth. Society’s obsession with outward achievement does little to support a gifted person’s complex, intense, creative and sensitive interior life. Gifted folk aren’t naturally born with a leg up in life. Giftedness is a mixed blessing, offering a myriad of gifts and challenges. Locating the right support, encouragement and social mirroring can make a huge difference.
I read about how feeling out of sync didn’t necessarily reduce with age. It could in fact increase and this could lead to further fragmentation, frustrations and alienation, according to Stephanie Tolan’s article, ‘Discovering the Gifted Ex-Child’ (1994). In the communities I joined, I was certainly in the minority in terms of age. I think I would have hit my ‘sweet spot’ if I’d been at least twenty years younger. But the initial out-of-sync feeling faded as I adjusted. I connected on Zoom with several women I particularly resonated with. We had some deep, wonderful chats. We shared experiences and useful resources.
I’d like to briefly add here that forming enriching gifted friendships can take time. Loneliness, painful feelings of isolation or feeling out of sync with others – to the point of feeling like an outsider or an alien – can be major challenges for many gifted children and adults. My heart goes out to them. Being in a gifted community is one thing, finding true peers is another and, it must be said, quite rare. Gifted minds work in unique ways, have unusual needs and can grow in unconventional directions. We have our internal challenges that arise from our particular make up of intensities and we have external challenges that result from a lack of knowledge of our special needs as a minority population. More about relationships later but I’d like to say here that meeting my true peers – that I can count on one hand so far – has been extraordinarily life changing. For this alone I’m incredibly grateful every single day.
In summary, my explorations, research and experiences over the past year or so have exposed me to a world that is fascinating. Most of all, I treasure the highly supportive connections. You know who you are, my dear friends. I’m a much better person for having you in my world.
With love,
Lil X
PS Thank you for hitting the like button. It gives me such a warm, tingly, happy sensation every time! Almost as good as eating roast chicken on a wintery Sunday. Thanks so much for going on this journey with me. It means the world!
Resources:
Gifted Mindfulness Collective: https://www.giftedmindfulness.com
Lotte van Lith, A Lot of Complexity: https://www.alotofcomplexity.com
Dr Patty Gently, Bright Insight Support: https://www.brightinsight.support
Dabrowski Congress 2024: https://dabrowskicenter.org/dc2024-sessions-and-schedule/
Intergifted’s Bookshop for the book compilation, Retrieving the Bones: https://intergifted.com/bookshop/
Neurodiversity Coaching Academy: https://www.neurodiversitycoachingacademy.com
